As your child’s
writing teacher I wanted to keep everyone up to date on what we are working on
in writing class. As the school year
itself is progressing, so is your child’s writing! We have completed Unit 1, the basic set up of
the Writing Community, Unit 2, which focused on the Writing Process and the
Fiction Unit, that encouraged your child to use his/her imagination and
creative thinking skills. Your child
should have shared their published fictional piece with you at home, which was
to be signed and returned to me.

This week was
the start of our Opinion Unit. This unit
is approximately three weeks long. The
first two weeks are the immersion and drafting weeks of the unit. During these two weeks, we will be reading
and analyzing different examples of published persuasive writing. Your child will begin drafting persuasive
essays, where they will express their opinions on varying topics and give
legitimate reasons for these opinions.
The next week will be the Revision, Proofreading and Publication phase
of the unit. This unit will conclude with
a published piece of opinion based writing.
I’m looking forward to hearing their personal thoughts and views, as
well as their supporting arguments.

In addition to
the daily writing practice, this program also exposes your child to various
types of literature and teaches basic grammar skills necessary for writing
grade level appropriate sentences. We
have discussed and will continue to discuss into this next unit, common and
proper nouns, action verbs and linking verbs, adjectives, subjects and
predicates as well as adverbs. This
particular unit will focus mainly on writing complete and complex sentences,
with an added emphasis on adjective use.